Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 85. Sunrise is 7:04 and sunset is 6:17 for 11 hours 13 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing crescent with 4.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 4:30 PM and the Planning and Architectural Commission at 6 PM.
On this day in 1983, Japan’s former prime minister Kakuei Tanaka is found guilty of taking a $2 million bribe from the Lockheed Corporation and is sentenced to four years in jail. (Tanaka remained free on appeal until his death in 1993.)
It’s Monday, October 12. Looking at a calendar, that’s a mere three days after Friday, October 9. How is Donald Trump’s diesel deal with Vladimir Putin faring?
First, as economics: The deal is too small to move markets meaningfully:
“It’s kind of shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic,” said Michael Lynch, distinguished fellow at Energy Policy Research Foundation, a nonpartisan research institution focused on energy and economics.
“If we get diesel from Russia, basically it means that their existing customers are not going to get it and they’ll have to go somewhere else, and that will keep the price basically where it is now,” Lynch said.
And while the White House may be counting on this move to give some relief at the pump for U.S. truckers, ranchers and farmers who have been hit hard by rising diesel prices, that’s not a given.
“The best you could hope for is a tiny dip in prices locally in places like the New York-New Jersey area, Philadelphia maybe,” Lynch said. “It just means that the oil is just going to be shuffled around and it’s not really going to change the price globally or across the U.S.”
See Alex Veiga, Boosting US oil supplies with Russian diesel unlikely to have much impact on prices, experts say, Associated Press, October 9, 2026.
Second, as diplomacy: A man who describes himself as an exceptional dealmaker claims to have reached a deal about which one of the parties was wholly unaware:
Donald Trump has announced an energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, apparently without consulting Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said the deal to stop long-range attacks was “news to me”.
In a social media post, the US president claimed the two sides had reached an agreement. “Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!” he wrote on Truth Social.
He offered no further details. Zelenskyy said he was surprised by the announcement but would agree to it if Vladimir Putin did the same. “If President Trump negotiated it with Putin – please tell us when the ceasefire begins. We are ready and we will accept it,” the Ukrainian president told the Axios website.
See Luke Harding, Trump announces partial ceasefire in Ukraine war as Zelenskyy says deal is ‘news to me,’ The Guardian, October 11, 2026.
And so, of course, it turns out there was no genuine deal at all. See Samya Kullab, Zelenskyy says Russia strikes energy facilities despite Trump claim of an energy ceasefire, Associated Press, October 12, 2026.
(Locally, if someone declares that this libertarian blogger has come to a deal with nativists, landlord oligopolists, lobbyists, or MAGA men, I would at least hope that that person would let me know about it.)
Third, Wisconsin needs diesel, not sham deals about diesel:
Mike Semmann, president of the Wisconsin Grocers Association, said the price of diesel will have an impact on many different parts of the grocery supply chain.
“Diesel is to the economy what electricity is to a home,” he said. “For Wisconsin consumers, it’s not just about what diesel costs, but about how businesses across the state are really trying to work to keep those costs from becoming a burden on Wisconsin families.”
He said diesel costs affect every part of the supply chain, and grocery stores pay special attention to diesel prices as part of their overall costs.
“Diesel helps move milk to and from farms, ingredients to processors, products to stores and goods to consumers,” Semmann said.
See Elissa Eaton, Record high diesel prices likely to drive up cost of groceries, other goods, Wisconsin Public Radio, September 17, 2026.
How ’bout something of a palate cleanser, replacing the latest news of federal economic ignorance and incompetence with scientific and photographic achievement:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS